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In order to make a successful claim for your accident, there are certain things we have to establish.
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| If you tripped over something sticking up, fallen or ridden into a hole in the road/pavement surface |
Firstly, we must show that the defect is bad enough to be considered a clear hazard to people using the area.
The guideline marker for defects on the pavement is that the trip must be 1 inch either sticking up or deep into the
pavement. However, this may not necessarily apply to cyclists or motorcyclists who have had an accident due to a bad
road surface, as different criteria apply in those cases - it may be the general condition of the road that is
important.
This part of the claim is usually the least difficult to deal with, because it will be fairly clear in most cases
whether the surface is dangerous or not. However, it is important that we get some photographs of the defect before you
report it! Once the Council (or other body responsible for the area) becomes aware that there has been an accident,
they will normally be very quick to carry out repairs! If you are able to, please obtain photographs, preferably using
some sort of measure against which to compare the size - e.g. a rigid ruler, or some other identifiable object.
The second thing we must show is that either the local authority with responsibility for the road either knew of the
defect and did not repair it or that they did not carry out regular inspections of the road (which should be done at
a minimum of 6 monthly intervals).
This latter point is the difficult one. Local authorities rarely co-operate in these claims, and the only way to find
out whether they have inspected is to issue proceedings through the court. We can then force them to show us their
inspection records.
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| If you have slipped, tripped or collided on/or with something left on the pavement or highway |
These claims may be more difficult to prove. If the item was left by someone unknown, unless the Council was
made aware before your accident, then you will have difficulty in pursuing a successful claim.
However, if the Council were aware and did nothing about it, then you may have a successful claim.
You should also be able to claim if we can identify who was responsible: the most common type of claim is where work
has been carried out and the contractors have failed to clean up properly, or have left materials in a dangerous manner.
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An occupier of premises is under a duty of care to ensure that visitors are reasonably safe in using the premises for the
purposes you are visiting for.
Whether or not the owners or occupiers of the premises will be held to be at fault for your accident will depend largely
on whether they had regular checks in place to ensure spillages were cleared quickly, and if they did, whether they acted
quickly enough once they were advised of the spillage. Sometimes this latter point is difficult to establish if we cannot
show when the spillage happened.
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